Steelseries Diablo 3 Gaming Headset

A look at the Steelseries Diablo 3 Gaming Headset:

With the overall look, you can get an idea of what the Diablo 3 gaming headset will look like. It has a USB connection, with in-line volume and microphone control. You will also notice the pull-out microphone in the left ear cup.

The top of the headband sports the Diablo logo adding to the overall appeal of the headset. The headband is also expandable for a one-size-fits-all headset.

On the side of the ear cups, you can see the red mesh and the custom design to go with it which makes it look like something out of the Diablo game. This is also where the LEDs are, which we will cover later in the review.

Here is a quick look at the in-line volume/mic control area. You can mute/unmute your mic with a quick switch of the button. Then you can control how loud or quiet you would like the sound of the game with the control knob on the side.

Steelseries has also added a cable extender just in case the original is not long enough. However, they did not add the sweet red/black braided trim to this one.

Now you can see the Diablo 3 gaming headset lit up in all its glory. In the software section below, we will show you how to tweak the LEDs to give yourself different looks.

Software:

With the customized Diablo 3 themed driver suite, you can see that Steelseries spent a little extra time on covering all their bases with this game. In the Settings tab, you will be able to adjust your equalizer settings to fully customize this headset to exactly how you enjoy listening to the game. Under the equalizer settings, you will get to the illumination area, where you can choose how bright you would like your LEDs to shine and what type of pulsation you feel you need.

The Application tab is the same as it was on the gaming mouse review. You can set up certain applications with their own custom equalizer profiles, and then they will automatically open up with your preset settings. This will help if you are switching game genres likes RPG to FPS, because you will need to key in on different sounds.

Usage:

For usage, we could not test these in Diablo once again, since Blizzard shut down all the beta servers the day before they arrived. So we went to the next best thing, Diablo 2. Yes, Diablo 2 is not the most stunning game sound-wise, but it is still Diablo. After playing around with the equalizer settings a bit, we finally found a happy medium for us to play Diablo 2 for awhile. The sounds were clean and crisp at all levels of volume and the headset helped immerse us into the world. We tested the automatic application switching between Diablo 2 and Battlefield 3 and it worked seamlessly, which we fully expected it to do. With the Battlefield 3 testing, we ran around with our annoying run-n-gun play style that so many people hate. The reproduced sound coming from the Diablo gaming headset was great. Everything from the footsteps to the bullets whizzing by was very crisp and sounded as good as you would hope.

Conclusion:

Overall the Steelseries Diablo 3 gaming headset performed great and looks even better. The 50mm drivers produced a very rich sound in the lows, mids, and highs. The comfortable fit of the expandable headband and synthetic ear cups made wearing the headset for hours a pleasant event. The control the driver suite gives us with the equalizer settings and LED options is always nice to have. It makes the gaming headset truly one-of-a-kind once you have all your settings saved. The retractable microphone is almost a necessity these days. We cannot count the number of microphones we have broken because they were not retractable. So, we are very happy with this feature being implemented on the gaming headset.